Left 4 Dead:
At Death's Dorm
Project Snapshot
At Death’s Dorm is a single- and multi-player campaign for Left 4 Dead built using Valve’s Hammer engine. The campaign project was completed in a team of three, with each designer being independently responsible for a single level. The campaign begins in the dorm building of an overrun university, and the player(s) must battle their way through the dorms, the library, the science building, and the stadium before being rescued.
Engine: Valve's Hammer (Source)
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Base Game: Left 4 Dead
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Development Time: 100 hours
Level Overview
As a member of Team Two Cats, I was responsible for the creation of the first level of our campaign: the dorms and library. After entering the dorm building via a hole in the ceiling, the survivor team must fight their way through the dorms and the cafeteria before making it to street level. They spill out across a small parking lot and into an alleyway to enter the side of the library. After conquering the annexes and a study room, they cross another alleyway to enter the science building and access the first safe room in a utility closet on the second floor.
The following levels pickup immediately where this level leaves off, with the Science Building level picking up immediately in a duplicate of the ending safe room of level 1. The difficulty intentionally increases throughout the campaign, with more exotic enemy types, scripted panic events, and a finale providing increasing challenge in the second and third levels.
Maps & Layouts
At Death’s Dorm: Act 1 is comprised of three main play areas: the dorms, the parking lot, and the library. A general overview map is provided below, along with design commentary and area images that showcase the aesthetics and key features.
Please note that all art assets originate from the Left 4 Dead Hammer engine. No original models or materials were created.
Overview Map
The player path highlighted on this map demonstrates only the essential path – the route the player must eventually follow to reach the ending room.
The Dorms: 2nd Floor
As the first area of the campaign, the 2nd floor of the dorms gives the player their first impression of the campus and establishes the tone and setting of the campaign. The design of this area is intentionally claustrophobic and tightly packed. This creates a favorable situation for the player by allowing them to bottleneck enemies in doorways and broken sections of walls, which can be particularly useful if the player triggers a boomer or horde event. On the other hand, the tight quarters and blind corners provide opportunities for the survivors to be ambushed or even separated from one another, so players must be mindful to keep their allies close and be mindful of their surroundings.
The Dorms: Second Floor Common Room. An open doorway on its hinges points the player into the bathroom.
The Dorms: Second Floor Women’s Bathroom. Shower and toilet stall walls provide blind corners and ambush opportunities for the infected.
The Dorms: Second Floor Survivor Community (overrun). A series of dorm rooms connected by broken walls provides environmental storytelling about a group of students who attempted to survive together, but eventually fell to the infection.
The Dorms: Second Floor Room Breach. Debris, a dead tank, and two dead survivors provide environmental storytelling about a pair of fighters overwhelmed by a tank attack.
The Dorms: Ground Floor
The ground floor of the dorms begins providing contrast to the claustrophobia of the second. The rooms the player passes through begin growing larger as they proceed through the laundry, then a rec room. The largest room in the building is the cafeteria, which provides more of an arena-style space where the player is potentially facing a horde in the open for the first time. The cafeteria was designed to encourage players to circumnavigate the buffet, potentially exposing them to the dangers of being in the center of the horde rather than at the edge. This provides the opportunity for a controlled learning moment, as players can learn how to deal with crowds in larger spaces while not being so large that they become immediately overwhelmed.
The Dorms: Ground Floor Laundry. Although more open, broken walls still give the opportunity for players to bottleneck hordes…for now.
The Dorms: Ground Floor Cafeteria. Tables and chairs placed to break up combat in the first open arena the player confronts.
The Parking Lot
After learning how to handle larger spaces on the ground floor of the dorm building, the player is challenged and the skills they’ve learned reinforced as they enter the parking lot. As the largest open space in the campaign, the design is intended to trigger an agoraphobic response. The player is exposed on all sides, and a blind wall provides ample opportunity for the director to spawn horde waves and crowds. The player may choose to deal with the horde in the open or pull them towards the alleyway leading to the library. While either strategy is feasible, the library alleyway also has an opportunity for infected to spawn and attack, and this unknown could provide a pincer disadvantage to the player that neutralizes their bottleneck strategy.
The Parking Lot. Wide open arena space with concealed spawn areas behind the brick wall (left) provides the broadest combat of the level.
The Library
Armed with experience, the player enters the last challenge area of level 1. Deliberately hybrid, the space combines both of the combat styles the player has experimented with: large arenas and tight quarters. Although the hall of the library is larger than any other interior space in the level, tightly packed shelves provide interior geometry that facilitates ambushes and blind corners. The player must combine what they learned about dealing with hordes in open spaces with the bottlenecking techniques that helped them fight efficiently in the dorms. After safely navigating through the study room and annex, they exit the library and proceed into the science building to prepare for level 2.
The Library: Café and Annex. Large arena-style room with furniture to break up combat.
The Library: Café and Annex. Large windows provide view of next objective, green light of exit sign provides direction to get there.
The Library: Study Room. Green light through doorway pulls player, desks break combat into chunks.
The Library: Annex. Tight bookcases before the exit provide blind corners and ambush opportunities.
Post-Mortem
What went well?
What went wrong?
What I learned?
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Early design discussion with team members and professors helped eliminate design problems before construction even started, saving reworking and rebuilding time later.
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Team cohesion and participation in the idea generation for this campaign was strong. No one was overly defensive of their ideas, and we discussed until we found the most feasible campaign setting as a group.
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Due to solid planning and early design iteration during documentation and map phase, no major changes were necessary to the gameplay past the Initial Gameplay milestone.
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By doing a small scale experiment and building a single room to the size that it felt good before building the remainder of the map, scale was accounted for early in construction and remained consistent throughout.
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My BSP sculpting could have been stronger to create more organic-looking shapes, particularly surrounding broken wall assets.
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My level of detail in aesthetics was aiming too low compared to my teammates due to misinterpreting the level of detail in base Left 4 Dead.
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VPK packaging issues arose later in the campaign milestones, which created tension between team members.
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Design discussions in pre-production can significantly improve efficiency and prevent rebuilding
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Cooperation on a campaign works best when ideas are allowed to come and go and people aren’t overly defensive of their ideas
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Doing small construction experiments to establish scale is a huge benefit when building in grid-based engines. Establishing scale early before constructing the entire level is essential to prevent rebuilding.
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Determining aesthetic level of detail for a particular game is an essential skill, and discussing level of detail with campaign members to ensure continuity across a campaign is an important practice.
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With older engines that are progressively phasing out, understanding the functionality behind a backend process like VPK packaging can be make-or-break for hunting down esoteric issues. Unfortunately new resources aren’t being published as steadily anymore, so finding answers must fall on the designer and their own experimentation when working in older softwares.